


Last Storm

by ariel2me



Series: Orys/Argella [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 7,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2278473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles about Argella Durrandon and Orys Baratheon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She hated him when he slew her father. But she hated him even more when he removed the chains her cowardly, traitorous men had brutally forced on her; when he covered her bruised, battered, naked flesh with his cloak; when he offered her wine, the only thing besides water that had passed her throat in days.

She hated her relief, her enforced meekness, her gratitude.

 _Where is your pride, Argella?_  The Storm Queen who knelt to the Targaryen bastard. The whore who fucked and then married her father’s slayer.

Her father had been full of pride. Argella wanted to live. She wanted her people to live. And she wanted Storm’s End, the only home she had ever known.

She had knelt, true, and she had married him. But she had never offered herself to him.

She did what she had to do, to protect herself, and everything she held dear.

“You should be proud,” he told her. “Your sigil, your House words, I’ll not change that. They will be mine as well.”  _I did that for you_ , was what he was implying.

 _No, you did that for yourself_. For a bastard without his own House and his own words and his own sigil. She smiled and told him, “I am most grateful.”

When he left to serve his dragon king, and they saw each other not more than once or twice a year, she was the happiest. It was the same for him, she knew.

There were children. There had to be; he was most insistent. He was starting a new House, a new dynasty, and he needed sons. A lot of them. “The Baratheons will rule over the stormlands for thousands of years to come,” he announced, proud and confident.

When the dragon king finally drew his last breath, and the new king had no more need of Orys Baratheon in King’s Landing, he came home for good to Storm’s End. To Argella. They sat across the table from each other, staring but not seeing.

“Well,” he said, finally.

 _Indeed,_ thought Argella _._


	2. Chapter 2

Argella had her eyes fully opened when her men dragged her in chains and threw her at Orys’ feet. She stared at him defiantly, despite the cold, despite her shivering naked flesh.  _Do your worst_ , her gaze told him.  _I am not afraid_.

Instead of giving up and surrendering after her father was defeated, she had barred herself and her people inside Storm’s End and declared herself the Storm Queen. The warrior in Orys admired her tenacity and boldness, even as the military general in him was frustrated by her refusal to admit defeat, when defeat was all but inevitable.

Her defiance seemed to falter, just for a moment, when he commanded the chains to be removed. She closed her eyes tightly when he took a blanket and covered her body. She opened them again when he offered her wine. The look of defiance had been replaced with something else. Hatred. Pure, undiluted hatred, that’s what he saw in her eyes. She drank the wine as if she had not drunk anything for days. “Thank you, my lord, for your kindness,” she said, sounding more resentful than truly grateful.

“You should have killed me, like you killed my father,” she told him later, when he came to her that night to speak to her about their marriage, about joining their two Houses together. “If you slayed my father because he was the enemy, why not slay me as well? I am the Storm Queen, like my father was the Storm King. Am I not worthy to be considered your enemy? Am I only worthy of your pity and mercy?”

Pride. Orys recognized it at once, for it was one of his most defining qualities as well. Argella Durrendon was a very proud woman, not one to look kindly on the kindness of enemies. “You are more valuable to me alive than dead,” he told her brusquely. “I am under orders to consolidate the Targaryen hold on the stormlands. Marrying you will allow me to do that.” He paused, before continuing, “That is a far greater punishment than death, to spend your days until the end of your life with your mortal enemy. I spared even your father that. There is no pity or mercy in my actions towards you, only a recognition of what has to be done.”

That seemed to satisfy Argella. “You may find our marriage to be a punishment for you as well, not just for me,” she replied, her voice an ominous warning.

“We’ll see,” Orys said.


	3. Chapter 3

Her father’s ghost followed her from the sept where she said the vows that would bind her to Orys Baratheon to the bedchamber where Orys took her maidenhood. Argella saw his face in the shadow - her father’s blood-soaked face with hollowed eyes where the vultures had feasted on them – watching, judging, and condemning her.

 _Blame your men for their fickle loyalty, for laughing at me when I declared myself the Storm Queen after you died,_ she whispered into the night to a father who was a father no longer, who was human no more. She could feel the chains on her skin still, could still taste the pain and humiliation as her own men dragged her naked to be dumped in front of Orys Baratheon.

She married the man who slayed her father, true, but she also married the man who wrapped her bruised, battered flesh with a blanket, who ordered the chains removed, who gave her wine to soothe her parched throat. He was the enemy, but the men she had trusted with her life had turned out to be enemies too. He was the conqueror, but her people had consented to be conquered, in fact were willing to sacrifice her to save themselves.

When Orys whispered her name on their wedding night, she saw the tears slid down her father’s cheeks from eyes that didn’t exist. When she whispered Orys’ name as he came, she heard her father’s cry of fury and frustration. When Orys’ seeds took hold inside her, she could feel her father’s mangled hands clawing inside her belly, trying to snuff out the life growing inside. She screamed and screamed from the vicious pain, but the maester could find nothing wrong, could give her no potion to ease the agony.

“He would kill it,” she screamed. “He would kill your baby, just as you had slayed him. My father.”

“It is your baby too, Argella,” Orys whispered to her sadly, his hands caressing her swollen belly.

_Did you hear that, Father? A Durrendon as much as a Baratheon, that is who I am carrying. Spare him!_

“Your father can do us no harm. He is dead,” Orys tried to convince her.

But Argella knew better. `The dead did not stay dead for long. They lived on in the ones they left behind. 


	4. Chapter 4

Orys came home from King’s Landing long before the baby was due to arrive. “The king does not want me to miss the birth of my first son,” he announced proudly. “The start of a Baratheon dynasty, the most glorious House the Stormlands will ever see, Aegon announced at court. My son and heir, the future lord of the Stormlands.”

 _My father was the Storm King, king of the Stormlands, not just a mere lord. Until you killed him._  Those words had always remained unspoken between Argella and Orys. But words did not have to be said out loud to gain their potency and power.

“What if it is not a son?” She ventured to ask him that.

“It _will_  be a son,” Orys replied, in a decisive tone that brooked no argument. “I have been praying for a boy. The gods do not deny the Targaryens anything we pray for.”

 _But you are not a real Targaryen. Only a Targaryen bastard born on the wrong side of the blanket._  Those words were also unspoken between husband and wife.

Argella prayed for a girl. Her prayers went unanswered, just like Argella’s prayers for her father’s safe return from battle had been cruelly unanswered.

She did not want to touch this black-haired Baratheon babe they tried to put in her arms, when she was worn and weary battling death for almost a day bringing him into this world. She did not want to love this boy who would signal the true beginning of House Baratheon, and codified the definite end of House Durrendon.

But the babe’s cries were loud and piercing. Argella’s head was pounding incessantly, and no one seemed able to make the child stop crying. So she took him in her arms. She took the babe in her arms, nursed him, and soothed him to sleep. That was her great mistake, for she could not remain indifferent to the child after that, could not keep her resolve not to love him, Baratheon or no Baratheon.

 _You are my son as well_ , she whispered softly to her son.  _Not just his_.

 _You are a Durrendon too_ , she promised herself to tell her son one day, when he was old enough to hear it.  _Not just a Baratheon._

She had not yet decided if she would also tell her son,  _Your father murdered my father_.


	5. Chapter 5

**Three-sentence fic, hostile takeover AU**

“If your shareholders would rather sell their stocks to me than accept your appointment as the new CEO, how is that my fault?”

“And this has nothing to do with us, with your ego, with me rejecting your marriage proposal?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Argella, I only wanted to marry you for your father’s company, but now I have the controlling shares, so why would I need you at all?


	6. Chapter 6

**Quote Swap.**

**Orys Baratheon + "Your father's lands are beautiful."**

**_____________________________**

“Your father’s lands are beautiful.”

Oh what mockery. How  _dare_  he? She turns her face away.

“ _Your_  land now, my lord. Your king’s decree made it so.”

“Yours, too, my lady. And our son’s, when he is born.”

 _A wife is not a ruler. The Lady of Storm’s End is no Storm Queen. Even your sweet words and gentle caress will not make it so, my lord._ Even the child growing in her belly would not make it so.

“What will you tell him, our son?”

“About?”

“His grandfather.”

“That the last Storm King died bravely and honorably. That there was no shame or dishonor in his defeat.”

_Will you not show him the sword that killed my father? The sword given to you by your own father._

“And what about his other grandfather?”

“There is no other. Not one he could claim in the eyes of the world.”

 _Don’t_ , she thinks.  _Do not make me think of you as flesh and blood. Wanting and needing, yearning and desperate, just like any other._

“A child needs to know the history of his people.”

“And our children  _will_  know. We’ll tell them about Durran Godsgrief and Elenei, and how they defied the gods for the sake of love.”

She laughs. “My lord, you would do well not to put too much faith in songs and legends.”

“Was it not love, then?”     

“Lust, more likely. Or an illusion to justify themselves.”

“An illusion?”

“Once so many have died and so much blood has been shed for the two of them to be together, what else could they call it  _but_ love? Anything else would have left them vulnerable to the scorn of the world. But call it love, pretend that it is so; then all is forgiven and you’re immortalized in songs and stories.”   

“And what will they say about us, in these songs and stories?”

“’ _They lived happily ever after_ ,’ I expect. Or some foolish nonsense of that sort.”

“And what would  _you_ have said, my lady, were you the one writing these songs and stories?”

“ _’They lived, for a time, and then they died._ ’”

  He smiles. “Well, that is an improvement of sort.”

“An improvement?”

“Before we were married, I was quite certain you would have said, ‘ _And they lived unhappily ever after._ ’”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not a new drabble, it was posted in a different drabble collection before. I am doing some housekeeping and rearranging things : )

**For the prompt: Argella’s thoughts and feelings during the time Orys was a captive in Dorne.**

“He is the king. I fight his war.”

“He is  _your_  king.”

“Aegon is more than just my king. He is -“

“Your brother?”

“- the man who made me who I am today. Everything that I am, everything that I have, I owe to him. This land, this castle, my title, my position.”  _This life. This marriage. You. You, and the sons we have made together. How could I deny Aegon anything, after all that?_  “Aegon raised me up beyond anything I thought possible.”

“You raised yourself up by your own deeds. And this war is futile, mark my word. Aegon will never conquer Dorne. The Dornish people will not betray their ruler. They are not craven the way the men of my garrison were craven. No one will deliver The Yellow Toad to your feet, bound, gagged and defeated.”

*****

Orys left for battle, just like her father did. She had tried, futilely, to convince her father to stay.  _The castle will protect us_.  _The walls of_   _Storm’s End have never been breached_.

The courage of men could easily be breached, though. How well Argella knew that. Storm’s End still stood, un-breached, impervious to anything and everything, it seemed. Yet here she sat, in the great hall where her father once ruled as king and where she used to sit by his side, his rightful heir, queen-in-waiting. Here she sat, holding court and dispensing justice in her husband’s name, during her husband’s absence, a mere Lady of Storm’s End, a queen no more.

The man who spoke next introduced himself as a messenger carrying an urgent missive from “the king.”  _Which king?_  Argella almost asked, before she remembered that there was only one king now. One king, and one realm. Except for Dorne, still stubborn, still unconquered, where Orys was currently slogging through the Boneway with his men.

Or so Argella thought. The letter from Aegon told a different story. She read it silently, her face betraying nothing. Only after she had returned to her bedchamber did she dare to speak the words aloud, alone in that empty room.

 _Taken captive_. Orys Baratheon, slayer of the last Storm King, conqueror of the Stormlands, Aegon Targaryen’s fiercest warrior and most trusted battle commander, taken captive by Walter Wyl. It did not seem  _possible_. It almost beggared belief. If the letter had brought the news of his death in battle, she would have found that much less shocking.

 _Taken captive_. He was a prisoner, as she was once a prisoner, when her own men betrayed her. Had  _his_  men betrayed him?

Was he put in chains, like she was?

Was he bound and gagged, like she was?

_You should be rejoicing, Argella. This is my vengeance. He deserves this. He deserves even more than merely being taken captive._

_No! He is the father of my sons. He is the father of your grandsons._

Had his captors stripped him naked, to humiliate him, to expose him to the elements and to the scorn of every eyes watching, like  _her_  captors did?

_This is our vengeance, daughter. For everything he has taken from us, for everything he has stolen from us. He took our land, our castle –_

_He won them in battle._

_He stole our sigil, even our words._

_He did that to honor you! To honor the fallen king and his courage, the king who died with a sword in his hand and a curse on his lips. He spoke to me of your courage, of your last moments, of your last words, of your last breath. You called out my name, he told me that. He committed everything to memory, for my sake._

_He took our sigil and our words to honor me? Do not make me laugh with scorn. Life is not a song, child. Nor is it a merry tale to warm the hearts. Have you grown so soft-hearted, so weak? This is our fury unleashed, Argella. Rejoice, in his destruction, for it is the seed of our restoration. Who will rule the Stormlands while he languishes in captivity? Your eldest son, his heir, is not yet three. Who will rule in the meantime? Who will rule if Orys di-_

_Enough!_

Her father was long dead. It was not his ghost haunting her, or his words roaming in her head, or his thoughts warring with her own. Hers, all hers; they were all hers, and no one else’s. It would be weak not to admit that, and she was not  _weak_ , even in her defeat.   

The scars on her wrists and ankles where the chains had strangled her flesh were still there; faint, but still visible. Orys had removed those chains himself, with his own hands - the hands that were now strangled with chains themselves, very probably. With those same hands, he had removed his own cloak and wrapped it around Argella, his eyes staring only at her eyes, not at her naked flesh.       

_He is the man I married._

_He is the man who fathered my sons._

_He is the man who was kind when he could have so easily been cruel_. No, that was too easy, too simpleminded, like the stuff of mawkish songs and maudlin tales fit only for the weak, the soft-headed, the soft-hearted. And she, Argella Durrandon, was none of those things.

And yet, it was the thought of his kindness that finally, _finally_ , made her weep for her husband, for the first time ever.   


	8. Chapter 8

_this living hand, now warm and capable_ _;_ _of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold; and in the icy silence of the tomb; so haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights; that thou would wish_ _thine_ _own heart dry of blood; so in my veins red life might stream again; and thou be conscience-calmed – see here it is – I hold it towards you_

_(John Keats)_

_____________________________

They shaved his beard, his fierce black beard, grown long and unkempt after three years of captivity that felt more like thirty. It was this, the sight of his clean-shaven face that shocked her. She knew about his missing hand, of course. Aegon had written to Argella about the hand, in an earnest missive that made no allusion to those other hands, the ones chopped off by her father and returned to Dragonstone in a box carved with prancing stags.

 _These are the only hands your bastard shall have of me,_ Argilac Durrandon had written to Aegon, back then.

 _Take her hand_ , _brother_ , Aegon had whispered, on Orys’ wedding day. _My brother shall have the hand of Argilac’s daughter in marriage, and much more besides._

“Do you suppose your lady wife will honor me with a token of her gratitude, were I to return to her your sword hand in a box?” Lord Wyl had taunted him, back in Dorne. “After all, yours was the hand that slew her father, the hand that stole her lands and her birthright. The Lady Argella might think it sweet, sweet revenge to have that rotting hand in her keeping.”

 _I am not my father_ , Argella had said, recoiling, back then, when Orys had offered her his sword hand, in a reckless act that was both a test and a prayer.

Would she still be recoiling now? Or would she see it as his just reward?

Her eyes were still fixed on his beardless face. He felt exposed – _was_ exposed – under the glare of her intent scrutiny.

“Lord Wyl should not have done it,” she finally said.

Done what? Shaved his beard? Kept Orys captive in his dungeon for three years? Took his sword hand? She was merciless in her relentless ambiguity. _Tell me!_ he wanted to shout, _was_ shouting in his mind. _Tell me true, my lady. Are you glad he took my sword hand? Are you disappointed that I survive to return to your home? To you?_

“You’ll grow it back,” she said.

“You’re mad,” he said, incredulous. “Hands don’t grow back. You’re mad. Mad!”

 But it was him who was laughing like a madman. “My lord,” she said. “Orys,” she called out. “Husband,” she even said, which was not a greeting she had often offered to him. But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop laughing, not even after the tears came.

She raised her hand from her side, and for a moment, he thought she was going to slap him. He would have welcomed that. He would have welcomed the pain. Better pain than numbness, better pain than this fog enveloping him, drowning him.

Instead, her hand found a different target. He recoiled at the cool touch of her palm on his stump. She persisted, fingers tracing the scars and knotted flesh, until his laughter finally ceased. “I meant the beard,” she said, fingers still gently stroking. “You’ll grow your beard again, and it will be as fierce as it was before.”

“What use would that be? What use would a fierce beard be to a man such as me?” He had been Aegon’s champion, his sworn sword, long before he was anything else. “What use is a sworn sword without his sword hand?”

“Are you only that? Not a lord, not a husband, not a father, only his sworn sword? Is he the only one who matters?”

He would be missed as Aegon’s sworn sword. He would not be missed as a lord, as a husband, perhaps not even as a father.  

 “You have a duty, my lord,” Argella continued.

“A duty?”

“A duty to survive.”

“My duty to myself. Yes, I know. Aegon said something similar.”

She shook her head, fiercely. “No, your duty to _me_. You owe it to me. You _owe_ me.”

He held out his stump towards her. “Is this not payment enough? Does this not serve as sufficient coins for my debt?”

“No. You took a life, _my_ life, my life as it would have been. You owe me a life in return. Yours.”


	9. Chapter 9

“And which King Durran was that?”

“The Fourth … no, wait, the Fifth.“

“Are you certain?”

“I … yes.” No, he was not. Not certain at all. All the Durrans. The never-ending Durrans. Not to mention the Arlans.    

“You are mistaken. King Durran the Third was the one who tried to invade Dorne and was rebuffed by Princess Nymeria. ”

Orys groaned. “Must I know and remember all this?”

“If you are content to appear to the people of the Stormlands as their ignorant lord, then no, my lord, you do not have to concern yourself with it at all.”

“Would it not suit your purpose for me to appear that way, my lady? As the unworthy, ignorant fool who usurped your birthright?”

“It does not suit my purpose for my people to be ruled by an unworthy, ignorant fool. And it certainly does not suit my purpose to be married to an unworthy, ignorant fool, or for this child growing in my belly to be fathered by one,” came her barbed reply. “Perhaps it is better if Maester Caedwald –“

“No! Your maester despises me.”

“And you are convinced that I do not?”

“Even if you do, you are much too honest to lead me astray in our lessons.” He added, after a pause, “Promise me something, my lady.”

“And what is that, my lord?”

“When our child is born, if it is a boy, promise me that he will not be named Durran,” Orys said fervently.

Argella laughed. The sound took Orys by surprise. “It was the same vow I made when I was three-and-ten and being quizzed by Maester Caedwald about all the Durrans,” she said. “No, my lord, our son will not be named Durran, I can promise you that.”  


	10. Chapter 10

Her farewell was blunt and uncompromising. “Do not die in Dorne, my lord. I will curse you never to find any rest or peace in death if you do.”

“I did not think you would care whether I live or die, my lady.”

“It is not about caring.”

“Of course. How silly of me.”

“Your life,” Argella said, “is not yours to forfeit.”

“Whose is it, then?”

“Mine.”

“Yours? Why is it yours?”   

“It is mine because you owe me a life, my lord, in payment for the one you took.”

“Your father’s life?”

“ _My_ life. You owe me my life. My life as it _should_ have been. As it _would_ have been, had you not killed my father and stolen my birthright.”

“If I am dead, you  –“

“If you are dead, your dragon king would quickly move to install another man in your place to bring me to heel. He would not suffer our little boy having me as Regent to rule the stormlands until Davos comes of age, for he could not trust my loyalty.”

“Is he right not to trust it?”

“That is hardly the point.”

“What _is_ the point?”

“Your duty to me. Your debt to me. Your blood debt; not just my father’s blood, but my blood as well, for I died too, the day the Durrandon fell. The woman that I was, and the woman that I could have become, she perished in the rain and the storm and the mud. If your blood is to be spilled unto death, I am the only one with the right to spill it, at the time and manner of my choosing. You have done me much wrong, my lord, in the name of your _precious_ king. Do not compound it by dying in his service, by dying while trying to help him conquer _more_ lands.”

“Or by dying before I have paid my debt to you in full.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Birthday gift for the amazing madaboutasoiaf <3

“My lady.”

“My lord.”

“I need a cloak.”

“A cloak, my lord? Are you asking for the return of the one you oh-so-gallantly draped over my naked, shivering body, the day my men presented me to you in chains?”

“No! You may keep that one, if you wish, or -”

“Keep it, as a constant reminder of your _kindness_ and your _gallantry_?”

“Or throw it away. Or burn it, if you wish. It is yours now, to do to your liking. I need a cloak in Durrand ... in _Baratheon_ colors. To serve as the bride's cloak at our wedding.”

“Am I not to be cloaked with _Targaryen_ colors, on that auspicious day?”

“You are not marrying a Targaryen, my lady. The Durrandon's sigil and colors will be the Baratheon's sigil and colors, as I have told you. There is still a war raging in the realm, and I must be by my king's side to fight it. There is no time to have a new bride's cloak made. Hence -”

“Hence you wish to appropriate a Durrandon bride's cloak instead.”

“I wish to borrow one.”

“Well, this one was the Durrandon bride's cloak once draped over the shoulders of my lady mother, and my lady grandmother before that. My lord father had hoped that a son of his would, in time, draped his own bride with this same cloak, but alas, the gods saw fit to take all my brothers in their cradles. If my brothers had lived, perhaps you would not be able to make so free with a Durrandon cloak now. Or Durrandon lands.”

“We had the stronger force. Even a son of Argilac Durrandon would have been defeated. I'm certain your courage matched the courage that any brother of yours would have shown, my lady.”

“Oh, it was not _my_ courage that was ever in question, my lord. I had courage enough to match _any_ man. It was the courage of _men_ that was lacking; craven, cowardly men who believed a woman could never hold a castle and a kingdom the way a man could, and thus decided to betray their rightful queen. You should pray to the gods that _your_ sons live to adulthood, my lord, or the reign of House Baratheon in the stormlands may not be as long-lived as you hope.”


	12. Chapter 12

It did not rain, he told her. It did not rain in Dorne, the day of his defeat, the inglorious defeat that led to him returning without his sword hand.

“Did you think you would have defeated Wyl of Wyl, had it rained that day? Because it rained the day you defeated my father?”

“There was a time, my lady, when I believed that it was _you_ who summoned the storm that day. The storm that brought the rain and the howling gale that blinded us to the advance of your father and his men. Rhaenys and her dragon saved us that day. Had it not been for dragonflame, fear and dejection would not have set in the hearts of your father's men.”

“I? Summoned the storm?”

“They said you were a witch. The Storm King's maiden daughter, with her spells and her incantations, summoning the forces of nature against her father's foes.”

She laughed, bitterly. “Had I truly been a witch, I could have held out against Aegon's invasion and ruled the stormlands in my own right, like the Green Queen held out against Storm's End and ruled the rainwood in her own right. Had I truly been a witch, I would not now, or ever, be Lady Baratheon. Had I truly been a witch -”

“- I would have lost more than just my sword hand in Dorne?”

“My lord, had I truly been a witch, you would not have lived to march to Dorne.”


	13. Chapter 13

He still remembered the first time he heard the roar of a dragon. Even Balerion, roused to his fiercest and most fearsome state, never sounded as terrifying to Orys as the storm currently battering the castle.

 _His_  castle. Aegon's decree had made it so. The Lord of Storm's End, afraid of the sound of wind and thunder and rain, afraid of the storm? Impossible!

He emptied his goblet of wine in one gulp, and motioned to the serving girl to fill it once more to the brim. The food on his plate was barely touched, the meat already cold, the gravy congealing into an unappetizing glob of brownish substance. They were eating stag meat again. It seemed like they had been eating stag meat  _every_  night since Aegon's decree formally naming Orys as Lord of Storm's End and Lord Paramount of the Stormlands was announced.

What was his lady wife trying to tell him? Now that  _he_  was the stag, the stag in Storm's End, she was eager to carve him up and serve him for supper?

And how  _long_  would this  _infernal_  storm go on and on? It had been three days and three nights, with no end in sight.

_Storm's End. There's a reason the castle is called Storm's End. It will stand. It will endure, as it had endured for thousands of years. It will not come crashing down on our heads while we are asleep in our beds. Or while we are eating our meat and drinking our wine._

Yet try as he might, he could not erase from his mind the thought of Durran Godsgrief's brothers and his wedding guests crushed beneath the collapsing walls of the castle, some of them swept away to sea, their remains never to be recovered. Durran himself had been spared, sheltered and protected within Elenei's arms, but hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other lives had been lost that day, the day of the great storm. The day the gods proclaimed their wrath and exacted their vengeance against the man they believed had robbed them of their daughter.

The shade of Argilac Durrandon would be just as wroth as Elenei's father and mother had been, if not more.

 _And what of my wrath, and my vengeance?_ Orys could almost see those words writ large in Argella's heart.

If the castle should come crashing down,  _she_  certainly would not be sheltering her husband within her arms. And well could he understand it. Why should she, after all? He wouldn't, had he been in her place.

 _The castle is not going to come crashing down. That was a different castle. The first of the seven Durran built. Not Storm's End. Not this one,_ he repeated to himself, like a mantra.

Argella was watching him from the other end of the supper table. There was nothing wrong with  _her_ appetite that he could see. She was eating and drinking as if nothing at all was wrong, as if the deafening sound of the howling gale was melodious music to her ears.

“Are you well, my lord?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the whiteness of his knuckles.

Oh, she was  _amused_. He could see it in her eyes. No, more than just amused. She looked  _satisfied_ , as if he had  _proven_ something to her, something she had always suspected about him, something to his great discredit that she was glad to discover to be true.  _I have found you out, Orys,_  he imagined her thinking.  _I have found you out to be the great coward and pretender that you are, that you always have been and always will be._

“Are you well, my lord?” she asked again.

“Never better, my lady,” he proclaimed, setting down his wine goblet on the table as calmly as he could manage, pretending that he had not been holding on to it for dear life.

Her glance swept across his plate. “Is the food not to your liking?”

“The food is fine.”

“You have barely touched it.”

“I am not hungry tonight.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps you are tired of stag meat, my lord?”

“No, not at all. I could eat stag meat  _all_  year, if that is your wish, my lady.”

She made no reply to this. The serving girl served Argella the dessert, some kind of pie with a very flaky crust. She ate the pie daintily enough, but with relish, each bite giving her great delight, it looked to Orys.

Surely she was  _mocking_  him, Orys thought. Mocking him and his lack of appetite. Mocking him and his fear of the storm. No, not fear, mere discomfort. It was mere discomfort, nothing more; he'd swore to that to all the gods old and new! He'd swore to that to Argella herself, unlikely as it was for her to believe him.

“It's a very  _delicious_  apple pie,”Argella said, as she paused between bites.

“I'm sure it is,” Orys replied, willing himself not to pick up the wine goblet once again.

“If the pie does not tempt your appetite, my lord, you should eat the bread, at least,” she remarked, after she had finished her pie. “It is not wise to drink with an empty stomach.”

 _I'll drink with whatever kind of stomach I please! And no more stag meat for supper,_   _not for a long, long time. Ten years at least._

How would she react, he wondered, if he had said this out loud?

He could not say it. Husbands who slew their wives' fathers must forfeit the right to be quarrelsome, demanding spouses. That was the least they could do.

 _Is this more of your chivalry, my lord?_  she would have asked, mockingly, bitterly.

_No, my lady. This is guilt, not chivalry._

His hand reached out for the bread basket. He ate the bread, as his wife told him he should.


	14. Chapter 14

He had not touched her on their wedding night, citing the need to leave for the next stage of the war at first light.

“Would it not be your king's wish for our marriage to be consummated, to ensure that it is binding and could never be set aside? Or is this yet another  _shining_  example of your oh-so-famous chivalry, another showpiece you wish to display to the people of stormlands?  _'See how well I am treating your former queen. This is how good a lord I will be to you, dear stormlanders.'_ Shall I be required to extol your kindness and virtues from one end of the stormlands to the other, my lord?”

“I require no such thing from you, my lady.”

It did not take long before another suspicion struck her. “ _He_ does not want you to beget an heir on me yet, your king. Should you die in battle, he wants to keep me available for another one of his men, to hold Storm's End and the stormlands for him. If you leave tomorrow with me carrying your son in my belly, then I could claim Storm's End and the stormlands in our son's name. That would make things more ...  _complicated_  … for Aegon.”

Orys flushed. That was confirmation enough for Argella.

“And this man is supposed to be your brother?”

“He is not -”

“Forgive me,  _half_  brother.”

“He has to do what is right for the realm. As a political calculation, it could not be faulted.”

“I suppose that was what you and Aegon were doing all those years in Dragonstone. Waiting ... and calculating.”

“His sisters are more his true partners in that. I fight his battles. I obey his commands. I do not plan his moves.”

“And you will obey him even in this?”

“My lady, I assume it will be a relief for you, not to have to lie with me tonight.”

“It  _would_ have been, had I not known your true reason for it. It is not because of any real consideration you have for me. It is because you are obeying your king's order not to touch me, so as not to endanger his control of the stormlands. How do you think that makes me feel?”

“Even if the situation had been different, I would not have forced myself on you tonight. I would have waited for you to -”

“To invite you to my bed?” Argella laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. “Forgive me if I do not believe you, my lord.”

“When I return after we have won this war, I will show you that Orys Baratheon  _keeps_ his word.”

“ _If_  you return.”


	15. Chapter 15

The old woman did not catch Orys' attention at first. She was just another face in the crowd, one among the many, many faces the Lord of Storm's End saw during his first progress across the length and breadth of the stormlands.

Her voice did not match her appearance. It sounded like the voice of a much younger woman. “It begins with a lass, and it will end with a lass.”

“What will?” Orys asked, startled.

“Your line. The line of House Baratheon of Storm's End.” 

“It begins with me, and it continues with my son.” His heir had been born half a year ago.

“Your line begins with  _her._ ” The old woman pointed at Argella, who was deep in conversation with the landed knight whose holdfast in Cape Wrath was currently hosting the Lord and Lady of Storm's End. “With the daughter of the man you slew.”

 _It will end with a lass._ What did she mean by that? Was it a threat against his son Davos?

He was about to insist on an answer, but the old woman was gone, to be replaced with another face in the crowd, this one with a petition to make. Orys barely heard what the man was saying, his thoughts still intent on the old woman's pronouncement.

_It begins with a lass, and it will end with a lass._

_No! House Baratheon of Storm's End will endure for generations, for thousands of years. How dare she! How dare she even speaks of … of the end._

House Durrandon of Storm's End had ended. Had ceased to be.

“It's not right, m'lord, what Lord Estermont wants to do. The land has been worked by our family for five generations.”

Orys stared at the man. What was not right? He had no idea what the man was talking about.

_It begins with lass -_

Argella was the one who replied. “Lord Baratheon will bring up the matter with Lord Estermont, when we are guests under his roof, in a week's time,” she said, in a reassuring voice. Then, she whispered to Orys, in a harsh aside, “You must  _listen_ , my lord. That is the purpose of the progress. For you to listen to the people of the stormlands.”

Later, she asked him, “What did that old woman say to you, that disturbed you so greatly?”

“Do you know her? Who is she?”

“If it was the same woman, then I have met her before. She claimed to be a descendant of the Green Queen.”

The Green Queen, a woods witch who led a rebellion against Storm's End and ruled the rainwood during the reign of Durwald the Fat. Orys remembered his stormlands history after all, though that gave his scant consolation at the moment. “She's a  _witch_? When did you meet her? How did you meet her?”

_Why did you meet her?_

“She came to Storm's End during the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of my father's reign. There was a seven-day celebration, with a tourney and seven great feasts. On the seventh day, the gates of the castle were opened to the smallfolks.”

“And what did she say to you?”

“You will rule, but you will not reign.”

“What does that mean? Was it a curse, or a prophecy?”

Argella sighed. “Surely you are too much a man of the world to believe in curses and prophecies, my lord?”

“Which one was it, my lady?” Orys demanded, insistently. “A curse, or a prophecy?”

“Neither. She was wrong! I  _did_  reign, as the Storm Queen, though it was a very short reign. I never truly ruled. I never had the chance,” Argella replied, bitterly. “Whatever it was she said to you, my lord, you must not let it trouble you. It is only the mutterings of an old woman, possibly a senile one.”

“She did not seem senile to me. She seemed to be in full possession of all her faculties.”

“What did she tell you, my lord? Will you not tell me?”

“It begins with a lass, and it will end with a lass.”

“What will?”

“My line. The line of House Baratheon of Storm's End.”

Argella laughed. “Well, there you go. It is  _absurd,_  ridiculous even on its face. The line of House Baratheon of Storm's End begins with  _you_ , with Orys Baratheon. Are you a  _lass_ , my lord?”

“No, but -”

The  _legitimacy_  of House Baratheon of Storm's End began with  _her_ , with Argella; Orys knew this full well. Orys' marriage to her was the reason Aegon was able to install a complete outsider, a man rumored to be his half-brother, as the paramount lord in the stormlands. This was something the king had not done in any of the other kingdoms he had conquered. Without her, without the legitimacy conferred by her Durrandon blood, the move would have surely attracted more opposition from the people of the stormlands.

Argella knew this too, of course; had in fact made it clear to Orys before their wedding that she was fully aware of his reason for marrying her, and for adopting the Durrandon's sigil and house words. She had very little patience for, and absolutely no faith in, the notion of chivalry or his intent to honor her dead father.

Then why, Orys wondered, was she making light of the old woman's words, the woods witch's words?

_It begins with a lass, and it will end with a lass._

But which lass?


End file.
